Senior Software Engineer

Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology

Technology is at the heart of Disney’s past, present, and future. Disney Entertainment and ESPN Product & Technology is a global organization of engineers, product developers, designers, technologists, data scientists, and more – all working to build and advance the technological backbone for Disney’s media business globally.

The team marries technology with creativity to build world-class products, enhance storytelling, and drive velocity, innovation, and scalability for our businesses. We are Storytellers and Innovators. Creators and Builders. Entertainers and Engineers. We work with every part of The Walt Disney Company’s media portfolio to advance the technological foundation and consumer media touch points serving millions of people around the world. 

Here are a few reasons why we think you’d love working here:

1. Building the future of Disney’s media: Our Technologists are designing and building the products and platforms that will power our media, advertising, and distribution businesses for years to come.

2. Reach, Scale & Impact: More than ever, Disney’s technology and products serve as a signature doorway for fans' connections with the company’s brands and stories. Disney+. Hulu. ESPN. ABC. ABC News…and many more. These products and brands – and the unmatched stories, storytellers, and events they carry – matter to millions of people globally. 

3. Innovation: We develop and implement groundbreaking products and techniques that shape industry norms, and solve complex and distinctive technical problems.

Content Platforms & Operations is responsible for the development and ongoing advancement of the technical and operational functions driving the worldwide distribution and monetization of Disney’s linear networks and theatrical content. This includes Disney’s media supply chain and storage, network and theatrical distribution operations, media localization, network transmission and origination, and more. The global team also plays a critical role as the primary collaboration point for Product & Technology with Disney’s EMEA, APAC, and LATAM regional business teams.

Job Summary:

The Senior Software Engineer will contribute to the development of world-class backend services that power our digital platforms. In this role, you will design and implement Java Spring Boot applications, creating reliable, scalable, and high-performance APIs and services that deliver Disney’s unparalleled entertainment and sports content to audiences worldwide.

As a key contributor, you will build robust service architectures, optimize data processing and integration workflows, and work closely with management, business partners, frontend engineers, product teams, designers, and other backend engineers to deliver innovative and resilient backend capabilities. Your work will directly support streaming, digital products, advertising, and content distribution, playing an important role in advancing Disney’s media technology.

In addition to hands-on development, you will participate in code reviews, share best practices, and help maintain high standards in backend architecture, performance, reliability, and code quality. Your experience and technical expertise will help elevate the overall effectiveness of the team and ensure consistent, maintainable, and secure service implementations.

This position requires deep expertise in modern Java development, Spring Boot, microservices architecture, API design, and backend performance optimization, along with a passion for building reliable, high-quality services at scale.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

·       Design, develop, and optimize Java Spring Boot services and APIs that power Disney’s digital platforms.

·       Build scalable, reusable, and high-performance backend components to support complex business needs.

·       Implement efficient data processing, caching, and integration workflows using modern backend tools and frameworks.

·       Apply best practices in backend performance, security, reliability, and observability.

·       Collaborate with other backend engineers and contractors to maintain code quality and consistency.

·       Participate in code reviews, provide constructive feedback, and contribute to team-wide knowledge sharing.

·       Align backend implementations with established architectural standards, integration patterns, and development guidelines.

·       Work closely with product managers, frontend engineers, and platform teams to define requirements and deliver robust backend capabilities.

·       Collaborate with DevOps and QA teams to support deployment, automated testing, monitoring, and incident resolution.

·       Partner with architects and platform engineers to design resilient service interactions and efficient resource utilization.

·       Ensure all services adhere to Disney’s engineering, security, and compliance standards, promoting consistency across platforms.

·       Explore and apply emerging backend technologies and frameworks to improve service performance and scalability.

·       Diagnose and resolve backend performance bottlenecks, improving throughput, latency, and overall service efficiency.

·       Utilize best practices for asynchronous processing, connection pooling, distributed caching, and message queuing.

·       Stay informed about the latest trends in Java, Spring Boot, cloud-native development, and the broader backend ecosystem.

·       Contribute to continuous improvement of development processes by recommending new tools, automation strategies, and workflows.

·       Provide ongoing technical support and troubleshooting for production backend services.

·       Address bugs, failures, and performance issues proactively to ensure service stability and reliability.

·       Support backend deployment efforts by working with DevOps teams to maintain smooth CI/CD pipelines and automated delivery processes.

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

Basic Qualifications

• 5+ years of backend development experience, with a strong emphasis on Java and Spring Boot

• Experience supporting backend development efforts and contributing to best practices through peer mentorship and code reviews

• Proven experience building scalable backend services for large-scale, high-traffic applications

• Hands-on experience working in agile development environments as part of cross-functional teams

• Strong experience designing and integrating RESTful APIs and service-to-service communication patterns

• Proficient in Java, Spring Boot, Spring Data, and modern backend development practices

• Solid understanding of microservices architecture, dependency injection, and application lifecycle management within the Spring ecosystem

• Knowledge of backend performance optimization techniques such as connection pooling, distributed caching, asynchronous processing, and efficient database access patterns

• Familiarity with relational and NoSQL databases, schema design, and query optimization

• Experience with containerization and deployment tools such as Docker and Kubernetes, along with cloud platforms (AWS)

• Strong collaboration skills, with the ability to work closely with developers, product teams, DevOps, and QA

• Effective communicator with the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders

• Ability to translate business requirements into performant, maintainable backend solutions

• Strong problem-solving skills with a proactive, detail-oriented approach

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with distributed systems, messaging technologies, or event-driven architectures (Kafka, SNS/SQS, ActiveMQ, or similar)

• Experience leveraging AI tools to accelerate software development, debugging, and code quality improvement

• Familiarity with advanced backend technologies such as gRPC, GraphQL, or reactive programming frameworks

• Knowledge of streaming workflows, video content delivery, or media distribution pipelines

• Previous experience working in media, entertainment, or sports tech environments

Required Education  

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience)